


That Way Madness Lies

by CaelumLapis



Category: Smallville
Genre: M/M, Spoilers: General for all prior episodes., Spoilers: specific for Season Four’s Spell.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:29:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25048450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaelumLapis/pseuds/CaelumLapis
Summary: Bloody fingers and the periodic table of elements. Sometimes Lex's mind dances on the line between genius and madness. Sometimes it doesn't even know where the line is.
Relationships: Adam Knight/Lex Luthor





	That Way Madness Lies

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer is, I don’t own them, not even a little.

Lex had missed Adam.

That and that alone had prompted him to fish a book of sheet music from the bookcase, and sit down on the narrow piano bench, although if anyone asked, he would deny it vehemently. His fingers had found the correct keys after some effort, and memories of Excelsior drifted lazily through his stream of conscious thought even now as he played.

He was out of practice, but slowly the melody became less painful and sounded more as Schubert intended. Lessons learned at Excelsior came back to him, memories of how to do this, what keys to touch, the precision and mathematics hidden in music that had drawn him in the first place. He played, his mind wandering down halls of memory, with subtle and occasional flashes of Adam, seated at this same piano, fingers caressing the keys with a gentle touch that never found its way into the bedroom with Lex. He'd preferred that, and he'd only winced faintly as a dissonant note sounded its disagreement from beneath his hands, a mistaken chord among acceptable ones.

Then Lana's visit had interrupted nostalgia and his ventures into memories of piano lessons, and he'd stopped playing. But he's playing again. He has no choice now.

He would not panic. Lana was long gone, his manuscript with her. She'd left him here, trapped in another Smallvillian fairytale of torment. The irony tasted bitter and dry in the back of his throat, and he eyed the water bottles and decanter on the bar with a soft sigh. He forced himself to think of something, anything other than watching the clock slowly counting past the minutes.

His fingertips were numb, and only faint pressure told him he was still striking the piano keys. That and the music that was becoming part of the background now, joining the crackling fireplace and the ticking clock and the screaming voice in the back of his head that was slowly driving Lex insane.

He misses Adam, and that alone is ironic. Missing Adam led him to this, a strange punishment handed to him, a warning to avoid nostalgic yearning for a pretty boy with a sarcastic mouth that tasted faintly of cinnamon gum and something sour, perhaps citrus? It lingers, that wondering, Lex's curiosity kindled again to decipher what distinct notes had comprised the taste of Adam's mouth.

He shuts down that train of thought, focusing instead on a slow mental recitation of the periodic table of elements by atomic number, and calming breaths.

Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium. His eyes take in the face of the clock. His housekeeper has the next twenty-three hours and thirty-four minutes off, but she will return after that. He laughs softly, the sound raw and more than faintly desperate to his ears. Boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine.

His mind wanders again, thinking of Excelsior and endless piano lessons and testing Bruce's razor-sharp intellect. Of Adam's eyes and Clark's lips. No.

Neon, sodium, magnesium. He will not think of them. Oh, that way madness lies, Lex, he thinks with an almost manic certainty. That way madness lies; let me shun that. Aluminum, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur, chlorine, argon.

The clock ticks endlessly, dark shadows building in the corners as the fire in the fireplace burns lower and lower. The clock informs him that his housekeeper would return now in twenty hours and fifty-six minutes. Potassium, calcium, scandium, titanium, vanadium, chromium...

What comes after chromium?

Lex chews at his lip thoughtfully. Mangan... something.

Ahhh, yes. Manganese. It always sounds odd, as if it doesn't belong somehow. And then iron, cobalt, nickel, copper, and zinc.

Gallium, germanium, arsenic. He is Lex Luthor. He has survived his father, Metropolis nightclubs, two homicidal ex-wives, four years of ill-timed erections around Clark Kent, numerous Smallville meteor-mutants, a poisoning, several shootings, a stabbing, insanity by drugging, and a crash into a bridge with his Porsche. He will not die as a result of excessive piano playing. The idea is absurd. Selenium, bromine, krypton, rubidium, strontium, yttrium.

The calming breathing is not working as well as he'd hoped, and Lex has a headache growing slowly behind his eyes. Zirconium, niobium, molybdenum, technetium, ruthenium, rhodium, palladium. He needs a drink, and that little faux-urban tart ran off with the wine bottle. The bar sits across the room, solid and mocking. He sighs again and rests his forehead gently and briefly against the sheet music, his fingers still flying over the keys. Eighteen hours and forty-seven minutes. Silver, cadmium, indium, tin, antimony.

He should have known, should have paid closer attention to the languid warmth in her voice and the latent sexual charisma that was so out of place when it came to Lana Lang. Tellurium, iodine, xenon, cesium, barium, lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium. His fingers are slowly coming back to life, tingles and knife-like stabs of pain flaring in the sensitive nerve endings at their tips. He grits his teeth. Adam had sucked at his fingers once, in this same room. He'd been seated at the piano-

No.

Neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium. He is nearing the end of the periodic table, he realizes with dismay. What next? Poetry is possible. Whitman or Donne. Perhaps he could recall, in order of release date, the events of his collection of Warrior Angel comics. Terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium.

Adam had eyes like storms, building across the sky in blue and gray, cloudy and fierce. Clark's lips look soft, full and sweet. Lex wishes he knew what they taste like, and wishes he had the courage to find out. Ytterbium, lutetium, hafnium, tantalum, tungsten, rhenium, osmium. The keys squawk beneath his fingers, dissonance and anger flowing free until he coils it back up inside of him and takes a deep breath, pushing air far down inside of him and letting it, Adam, and Clark out all together.

If he survives this, no, no no. When. When he survives this, there will be hell to pay. His hands hurt, and a steady throbbing ache is building behind his eyes, through the muscles of his shoulders and neck, down along his spine. Fifteen hours and thirty-nine minutes. Iridium, platinum, gold, mercury, thallium, lead, bismuth, polonium, astatine, radon. He sits and plots because it calms him. Plans and schemes and ideas calm him. Swirling around and through them are the neatly constructed elements of the periodic table, cut by flashes of Clark and Adam.

"No, no." He grits, blinking down at a faint smear of crimson on the keys. That... is strangely fitting. His father would laugh. Lex Luthor found dead at the piano, a strange suicide to the arts. He laughs, raspy and gravelly sounds that should be laughter, but aren't. Adam flits through his thoughts, reciting elements with a smirk. Francium, radium, actinium, thorium, protactinium, uranium, he intones, mockingly. His fingers caressed these keys and then caressed him. Fuck you, Adam.

Adam slowly fades away, and Clark replaces him. Neptunium, plutonium, americium, curium, berkelium. His voice is scolding. He would sit at the piano, but not play it. He doesn't know how to play it. He knows how to play him, though, and he always has. Lex wishes he would fade away, wishes he could curse him. He cannot. Californium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, nobelium. Clark's voice recites in a soft husky whisper, and it shouldn't be sexy, but it is. Lex Luthor found dead at the piano, with an erection. His father is laughing. Fuck you, Dad.

Thirteen hours, twenty-three minutes. Lex cannot decide who he hates more, Schubert, Clark, his father, or Lana. Lawrencium, rutherfordium, dubnium, seaborgium. The red smear beneath his hands is growing, a stain across the keys. The sun is rising behind him, drifting through the windows in soft gold and red. His back aches, his shoulders are cramping, his arms are in agony, and he cannot feel his fingers anymore. A hollow ache rests at the back of his throat and slides its way slowly down to the pit of his stomach. Bohrium, hassium, meitnerium. He has reached the end of the periodic table.

Whitman is time-consuming, he thinks. Soothing as well. Clark flirts with his stream of conscious thought, and Lex conjures up images of him doing chores underneath the wide Kansas sky. Wholesome, heterosexual sweat and wide hands gripping a variety of phallic tools. Whitman would have loved Clark, and Lex would have had Whitman quietly, and yet thoroughly removed from Smallville. Whitman it is, Lex thinks with a manic giggle. Clark owns Lex, though Lex will never admit this to anyone else. Whitman would understand.  
  
 _I celebrate myself, and sing myself,  
_ _And what I assume you shall assume,  
_ _For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.  
  
_ Whitman would have adored Clark, he thinks, and he closes his eyes, shutting out the bloody piano and Schubert and the sunrise that hurts his eyes. Inside his head is mostly quiet, and Lex drifts aimlessly through it as his body cramps and coils around him. He recreates the loft from memory, and Clark reclining on the couch.

Snatches of the poem flit through his thoughts, in Clark's voice.  
  
 _Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes,  
_ _I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it,  
_ _The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.  
  
_ The loft smells of hay, and of warmth. There is an undercurrent of boy, and of secrets, but Lex ignores the latter and breathes in the former. His father is laughing, but Lex ignores this too.

His father's mocking voice surrounds them, "Lex."

Lex stiffens and blocks it out, willing the voice away as he stares at Clark. _I can decipher him,_ he thinks _. Give me time, and I will decipher him. I just need time to think_. Clark is babbling softly about something, and Lex strains to hear what it is, but he cannot make out what he is saying.

"Lex, what are you doing?" The voice isn't his father's, and Lex blinks, the loft and Clark fading away as the sound of Schubert fills his ears. His hands are bloody, his fingers stinging and aching as they pound away at the keys. Lex looks away and stares up at Clark's face.

 _Clark's face? When did Clark get here? Is Clark here_? The light around him is brighter, but somehow the light is always brighter when Clark is around. It almost makes him laugh, but he cannot decide if he wants to laugh, which would be bad, or cry, which would be infinitely worse.

 _Clark isn't here, Lex. It isn't him. Nobody is here. It is just you_. He stares back down at the piano, at ivory and crimson and the blur of motion his fingers create as they pass swiftly back and forth. He wishes he could think, but his thoughts race around in circles, Whitman and lofts and his father's laughter and Clark, always Clark.

"Stop," Clark says, and his voice is soft, scared. Lex feels a weight descend beside him, and arms wrap around him, restraining him. Lex finally believes it is him. His mind cannot be this cruel. "Stop it!"

"Can't," Lex retorts, struggling feebly and willing himself to stop. Clark pushes the piano away, and Lex gapes as it obeys him and slides across the floor. He reaches for it, his hands still bound to whatever orders Lana gave them. But the piano is gone and Clark is really there.

Clark is really there, and his hands are warm, pressing into Lex's arms and holding him away from the piano and against him. Lex decides, deliriously, that he will take great pleasure in destroying that piano. And the sheet music. Possibly anything he owns that has anything to do with Schubert or is of a vintage remotely related to red merlot from anywhere in France.

"Lex, what happened?" Clark's voice is unsteady, and very slowly, the world is starting to make sense again.

"Lana," he chokes out, panting and staring at the piano as it skids to a halt across the room. Clark has some explaining to do. But the piano is across the room, and Lex can breathe again, and he blinks as the piano blurs and replicates itself slowly across his field of vision. Then his eyes close and his body crumples and he wobbles at his perch on the edge of the piano bench, and the world fades slowly away.  
  


~~~  
  


When he wakes, the first thing Lex notices is how beautifully, blissfully quiet it is. He pushes up on his elbow, blinking as his hand slides across the sheet with a faint rustle. He glances down at the white bandages covering his fingers.

"Lex?"

He squints through the faint light in his bedroom. The drapes are drawn across the windows, but the line of light between them is rosy, and his clock seems to think it is just a few minutes before six PM. Clark is sprawled in a chair near his bed, and he stands up, moving to cross the space between them and sitting down beside him.

"Thirsty," he replies in a rasping voice, and he is, so thirsty. His tongue feels swollen, and there is a wretched taste in his mouth that Lex is in no hurry to identify. He only knows that he wants it to go away. Clark hands him a bottle of water, and Lex drinks it quickly, pausing to cough and catch his breath before he goes back for more. Clark thumps a hand against his back gently when he coughs, and Lex smirks faintly at him. It tastes as heaven should, sweet and bubbly and soothing. He hands Clark the empty bottle and sinks back down into his bed.

Clark squeezes his arm, and then pets it gently, fidgeting. Lex takes in a deep breath, and he knows he will regret this, but he just needs time to think, time to understand, so he rests his cheek against Clark's shoulder and closes his eyes. He can feel Clark tense, and then slowly relax and drape a cautious arm across him.

"Are you okay?" His voice rumbles in his chest. Lex sighs softly, nods, and plans to give Clark whatever he asks for as long as he doesn't move and doesn't ask any questions. He rolls to his side and moves a tiny bit closer. Clark seems to understand this, and he says nothing, just carefully rubs his hand along Lex's arm.

"Better," Lex says, finally.

"Are you hungry?" Clark is such a polite boy and Lex considers this as his stomach perks with interest at the suggestion.

"No," he lies, because if Clark moves now no amount of food will ever sate his hunger.

Clark nods, and his arm tightens slightly around Lex's shoulders. "Okay."

The silence is the best gift he has ever been given. Comfortable and soothing, and he basks in it and Clark, and Lex opens his eyes, watching the light fade slowly through the crack in the drapes. Clark says nothing, just rubs his hand gently up and down Lex's arm.

"You scared me," Clark confesses, so softly that if his ear hadn't been resting against him, Lex wouldn't have heard it. "If I had known... I would have come sooner."

It is as much truth as Lex has come to expect from Clark, and even that is a gift. "I know," he answers as the light dies in the space between the drapes.

"How long?" He asks tentatively and his arm tightens again, a tiny fraction. Lex thinks, not because he doesn't know, but because he knows Clark expects answers, even when he does not return the favor.

"Roughly eight hours," he answers, as he pushes up and pulls away. Clark looks at him as if he's been sucker-punched.

"I'm sorry," he says, quietly.

"Not everything is your fault, Clark," Lex replies, planting his socked feet on the floor and standing carefully. He wants a toothbrush so badly he can already taste it.

"Yeah," Clark says, but he doesn't sound convinced of that at all. Lex pads to the bathroom, and he hears Clark follow him. He studies his face in the mirror, unsurprised to see Clark's face as well, and he glances down and applies the paste to his toothbrush, scrubbing last night and the sickly-sour taste of an endless private concerto from hell out of his mouth. Clark watches him silently, and Lex would find it creepy if it wasn't Clark. Somehow Clark manages to make things that should be creepy, sweetly endearing.

Lex spits and smirks faintly at the boy reflected in the mirror. "I'm okay, Clark. I promise my toothbrush is perfectly safe."

Clark only shakes his head a little and studies his shoes. "Not worried about the toothbrush," he says.

Lex arches a brow and cups a handful of water, sucking it into his mouth and swishing it around before it chases the toothpaste down the drain. He licks his lips and feels so much better. Almost like himself again.

"You could have died."

Lex considers this, turning to face Clark and leaning back against the sink, his hands flanking his hips and splayed on the countertop. "Death by piano. My father would have loved that."

Clark's eyes flash. "I hate your father," he says, and the venom in his voice surprises Lex.

"I see," he says, and he almost does.

"But not you," Clark finishes, and this is important somehow. It sits between them, and Lex plucks it from the air and tucks it away somewhere deep inside of him, hoping Clark doesn't notice.

"I... just can't tell you things, Lex. I wish I could, but I can't. I know you won't ever stop asking, but I just can't." Clark looks up at him, slouched and hesitant and Lex wants to hug him, wants to throw something at him, wants to understand him.

He just nods.

"I'm sorry," Clark picks at his shirt. "I... won't stop asking either."

"I know," Lex responds, and the urge to throw something at him is growing exponentially.

"Lex?" Clark straightens a little and studies him, cautious but not as hesitant now. As if he's shed something that has been weighing him down, in the vague way he always skirts something and still somehow manages to feel better afterward. Lex hates him for that, but he knows too well how it feels because he does it too.

"Yeah?"

"I... can I ask you something? It's really, really stupid."

Lex shrugs a little, and wonders when his bathroom got so small.

Clark takes a deep breath and stares down, then peers up through his lashes at him, and then fidgets with his shirt, and then looks at him. "Can I kiss you?"

Lex blinks. "Can... what? Why?" _Smooth, Lex. Really smooth_ , he chides himself.

"Uh..." Clark says, and then he gives up explaining and just does it, fumbling closer and pinning Lex back against the counter, and apologizing under his breath just before he presses a sweet, chaste kiss to Lex's lips. Lex blinks and then closes his eyes and wraps his arms around Clark's waist and resolves to cure him of anything even remotely chaste and apologetic, and teases his tongue into Clark's mouth. Clark hugs him, and sighs quietly into the kiss, and very carefully pets Lex's back with gentle rubs as he pulls away, looking a little dazed.

"I... "

"If you apologize, Clark, I'm going to kill you," Lex says, and he's only half-joking. Clark blushes up to the crown of his head and then grins, and the combination is enough to give Lex cavities for life.

"I won't. Wasn't... not apologizing."

Lex hugs him tight, and then steps away and out of the bathroom. Clark follows him, and Lex turns and looks up at him, and resists the very unLuthorlike urge to ruffle his hair. "What?"

"I have to go," Clark says, sadly.

Lex shrugs again, only because that is far easier than the alternative. "Alright."

"Are you sure you are okay?" Clark gives him another worried look, and Lex wonders when he became Clark's favorite damsel in distress, and then wonders why he feels the need to mentally castrate himself just because Clark is worried.

"I'm fine."

"I'll come back later. Please eat something." _God, he's annoying_. Lex scowls and sighs. Having people follow him around and worry about him really, really sucks, and what sucks more is that he doesn't entirely hate it.

"I'll eat something," Lex promises, and his stomach cheers.

Clark pauses a moment, and then hugs him tightly and kisses his forehead softly. "I'll come back as soon as I can."

Lex nods and hugs him back, and smiles faintly because now he knows what Clark's mouth tastes like.

Clark sighs and grabs Lex's hands, kissing each of his bandaged fingers gently, until Lex swats him away. His grin is soft and easy, more like the Clark he remembers as he darts out of the room, and Lex smirks and wanders down to the kitchen, plotting the destruction of his piano.


End file.
